Untitled, 1989

Elements of Pop Art, Surrealism and German Neo- Expressionism all feature in the art of Jiri Georg Dokoupil. He can best be described as Post-Modernist, constantly renewing his style and developing new techniques. Jiri Georg Dokoupil makes use of different iconography in his paintings, sculptures and other media, and sometimes parodies the type of visual language used in advertising and printed comics. In the 1970s Jiri Georg Dokoupil studied fine arts at various art academies, including the University of Frankfurt and the Cooper Union in New York, where he met German artist Hans Haacke, who had some influence on his art. Jiri Georg Dokoupil became a founder-member of an important group of German Neo-Expressionists known as Mulheimer Freiheit, named after the street where they shared a studio, and in 1982 he had solo exhibitions in Amsterdam, Cologne and Rotterdam. Also in 1982 he submitted God Show Me Your Balls to Documenta 7 in Kassel. This immense work was created in tribute to the artist Julian Schnabel, who had not been asked to exhibit there, and it brought Jiri Georg Dokoupil recognition in the world of art. He has never wanted to develop a permanent style that would be recognizable as his, preferring to experiment with different techniques and to be influenced by a number of art movements. In any medium or style of painting, his art is strongly self-expressive. By the end of the 1980s he was using the flame of a candle to create his Soot Paintings. In his later works he has developed new techniques for using paint and pigment to create still life and figurative images. Since 1983 he has been teaching art in Dusseldorf, Kassel and Madrid as a guest professor. His works are now in the permanent collections of major modern art museums in several European cities.